Champa

Posted by Laurie Sams9sc on June 10, 2016

Champa ( Wikipedia ) refers to a collection of independent polities that extended across the coast of what is today central and Southern Vietnam from approximately the 2nd century through 19th century ( 1832 ), before being absorbed and annexed by the Vietnamese state. The Kingdom was known variously as nagara Campa in the Chamic and Cambodian inscriptions, Cham pa ( Chum pa ) in the Vietnamese inscription ( Chiem Thanh in the Sino -Vietnamese vocabulary ) and Zancheng in Chinese records.

The Chams of modern Vietnam and Cambodia are the remnants of this former kingdom.They speak Chamic languages,a subfamily of Malayo-Polynesian closely related to the Malayic and Bali-Sasak languages.

Champa was preceded in the region by a kingdom called Linyi , Lim Ip in Middle Chinese or Lam Ap ( Vietnamese ) that was in existence from 192 AD ; the historical relationships between Linyi and Champa is not clear. Champa reached its apogee in the 9th and 10th centuries. Thereafter, it began a gradual decline under the pressure of Dai Viet, the Vietnamese polity centred in the modern region of Hanoi. In 1832, the Vietnamese emperor Minh Mang annexed the remaining Cham territories.

Hinduism, adopted from India since early in its history, has shaped the art and culture of Champa kingdom for centuries, as testified with a number of exquisite Cham Hindu statues and red brick temples which dot the landscape in Cham lands.My Son ( Mee Sern ) a former religious centre, and Hoi An, one of Champa main port cities, are now World Heritage Sites. Today some of Cham people adheres to Islamic faith, a conversion which was started in the 15th century, and they are called Bani Cham. There are however, Balamon Cham ( from Sanskrit;Brahman ) people that still retains and preserves their Hindu faith, rituals and festivals. Balamon Cham people is only one of two surviving non-Indic indigenous Hindu people in the world, with a culture dating back thousands of years. The other one is the Hindu Balinese of Indonesia.